Page 193 of A Legacy of the Light

Eòghann looks back to Reyne, sobbing and snarling at him from my arms on the ground, and gets to his feet. “I’m sorry, sunshine.”

Reyne stops short. “Never, ever, call me sunshine again.” Her voice is soft and lethal.

She stands up and I stand with her, never letting go of her hand and pushing all the support and comfort I can through the gesture.

“I’m going to kill you, Eòghann. Mark my words. I am going to kill you. And I will enjoy every, single, second of it.”

She turns away from him and strides to the wooden bed she claimed as hers on our first night.

I watch him watch her. The pain written across his features almost makes me want to comfort him. Another tear leaks free and he wipes it away with the back of his hand. He looks to me, some hidden message screaming back at me, and turns, striding from the tent with Broderic on his heels.

Confused, I stare at the opening to the tent as the fabric gently wafts in the breeze.

Something isn’t adding up.

Reyne lies down with her back to me. “I’m here, Reyne. When you’re ready to talk, I’m here.”

She pulls the thin blanket up around her ears and her shoulders shake with the force of her sobs.

The quiet between us stretches into the afternoon. I leave Reyne, knowing she will talk to me when she’s ready.

Wearing a clean pair of brown pants and a white shirt, Broderic strolls through the tent entrance carrying cheese, bread, fruit, and some water.

“Eat. Drink. We leave in thirty minutes.”

“For what?” I challenge from my shitty bed.

“We’re to meet Callahan. I don’t trust you, so you’re coming with me.”

Callahan.

Their leader. The one who is responsible for every bad thing in my life for the last two years.

Reyne rolls over and trudges toward the food left for us in the middle of the room.

“No sass, Red?” he quips as she sits cross-legged on the ground and tears into the bread. I sit next to her and she offers me a piece.

Reyne looks up at him, her eyes red from tears but her face void of emotion. “I’m just trying to decide how to kill you. Will I snap your neck between my thighs, or drown you in the bucket you’ve made us shit and piss in for three days?”

Despite the threat, Broderic laughs. “The first sounds like a good way to go if you ask me, Red.”

Reyne ignores him and goes back to eating.

“Thirty minutes,” he repeats and leaves us alone in the tent.

“Callahan is their leader. Tavish told me. He’s the one who killed my family. He took Granny and killed Mom. Everything, it’s all on him,” I whisper to Reyne.

She stills, but doesn’t look at me. “Then when we get to wherever we are going you unleash everything you have on the fucker.”

I nod and we finish our small meal in silence.

◆◆◆

We’re loaded into the same cart we travelled from Claver in, and the sky opens. Rain plunks against the wagon as we’re taken to meet the Seelie who is leading this rebellion, and is responsible for the death of my mom. After about an hour, we stop, and Reyne and I are forced to our knees in the mud in the center of a clearing, the forest darkening around us as the light fades. A group of around twenty have joined us as we wait.

Anger and fear boil and simmer in a heady mix. My heart flutters in my chest, along with that other sensation that beats alongside it—the beat of my magic, and the band that holds it tight.

Rain plasters the hair to my face and I scan the trees around us, blinking away the rain drops, looking for Callahan.